The Fandom Portals Podcast
"Welcome to Fandom Portals—the show that explores how your favourite fandoms can help you learn and grow!" 🎙️✨
Each episode, we explore TV, movies, comics, and games to reveal how these worlds and the characters in them help us learn about resilience, courage, friendship, and more.
The Fandom Portals Podcast is hosted by Aaron Davies and Adam Brasher, two friends who are obsessed with fandoms, storytelling, and building a community where passion and positivity come first. From Marvel to Middle-earth, Star Wars to indie comics, we dive deep into the stories you love — and how they help us learn and grow. ✨
The Fandom Portals Podcast
Waterworld (1995) – Sinking Budgets, Soaring Stunts, Kevin Costner's most Challenging Role and the Power of Survival
Episode Summary:
Aaron and Brash dive into one of the most infamous cinematic epics of the '90s: Waterworld. They explore how this post-apocalyptic maritime adventure became the most expensive film of its time—complete with hurricanes, on-set injuries, and Kevin Costner’s controversial creative control. But it’s not all chaos—at the heart of Waterworld lies a powerful message about survival, connection, and the high cost of human excess. With fan reactions, behind-the-scenes truths, and a fierce Fandom Fact Face-Off, this episode brings fresh perspective to a misunderstood cult classic.
Topics:
- The unprecedented $175M+ budget and production disasters
- Kevin Costner’s deep involvement and fallout with director Kevin Reynolds
- Alternate cuts explained: The Ulysses Cut vs. theatrical
- Symbolism of mutation, scarcity, and environmental collapse
- The Smokers as a satire on overconsumption
- Scene breakdowns: lime trees, jet skis, and that infamous fish fight
- Universal Studios live stunt show legacy
- Kevin Costner’s 2021 reflection on Waterworld
- Fandom Fact Face-Off trivia challenge
- Reddit & Threads reactions and listener hot takes
Key Takeaways:
- Waterworld was groundbreaking in practical effects and filming on open ocean, despite constant delays and dangers.
- Kevin Costner’s passion shaped the film—both creatively and financially—but clashed with director Kevin Reynolds.
- The movie’s world-building and practical sets remain awe-inspiring, even if the narrative felt overstuffed.
- The Smokers represent a clever critique of environmental damage and consumer culture.
- Fans now view Waterworld with greater appreciation, calling it a visual marvel and misunderstood gem.
- The Mariner’s evolution—from loner to protector—delivers a meaningful arc about human connection in harsh times.
Quotes:
“They weren’t reviewing the movie. They were reviewing the expense of the movie.” – Kevin Costner
“It’s the closest way we get to a fantasy world—just one built from desperation.” – Brash
“Every time you watch it, there’s something new to see—even if it’s just the shell on the Mariner’s earring.”
“Dennis Hopper wasn’t just a villain—he was the fun kind of villain.”
Apple Podcast Tags:
Waterworld, Kevin Costner, Post-apocalyptic Movies, 90s Cinema, Film Trivia, Behind the Scenes, Movie Production Disasters, Cult Classics, Dennis Hopper, Environmental Satire, Action Movie Legacy, Fandom Portals Podcast, Geek Freaks Network, Practical Effects, Alternate Cuts
Contact Us:
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Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
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So we're doing Waterworld from 1995. What will you learn this episode? You will learn why Waterworld made waves as the most expensive film ever made at the time, how the production spiraled into a full-blown nightmare, including some sinking sets, storms and all what Kevin Costner really thinks of the film today. Spoiler alert Brash, it's complicated.
Speaker 2:I think at the moment, Kevin Costner has a complicated relationship with everything he's done.
Speaker 1:I absolutely agree, and we're also going to learn how this post-apocalyptic epic delivers a surprisingly powerful message about choosing connection over personal gain. Welcome to the Fandom Portals podcast, a podcast that explores how fandoms can help us learn and grow. I'm your host, aaron, and as usual, I'm joined by the man who doesn't have a name, so death can't find him, but he does have a name in his browser. Here he is.
Speaker 2:Dry land is not a myth. I've seen it, kevin Carsten, on Waterworld, and that's what we're doing today, isn't it, aaron?
Speaker 1:It certainly is. We are doing Waterworld from 1995. The Kevin Costner starred film directed by Kevin Reynolds. This one comes as a special order from our American friends in the Challenge Accepted podcast.
Speaker 3:Hey Brasher, hey Aaron, this is Frank from Challenge Accepted and we have a challenge for you. You guys are both Australian and you guys are famed for the Mad Max movies rightfully so. They are never miss and always awesome. But I've got an American attempt at Mad Max for you to watch, and that is the 95 film, waterworld. Yes, it's Mad Max with boats. I want you guys to watch Waterworld and let me know what you guys think about it.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the flick and keep on going this is a shout out to frank and thomas thank you very much for giving us this wet version of mad max. Nothing like a chase on boats on the sea. Instead of outback australia, this movie is about a future where the polar ice caps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged. A mutated mariner fights starvation and outlaws smokers and reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl try to find dry land. Now, before we get into any more, we're going to do our gratitudes Brash. I'll go first.
Speaker 1:This week, I'm grat, I'm gratitude for I'm gratitude, I'm gratitude, I'm so gratitude, I'm so grateful for the gym, and I say that because it is a good place to go to let off some steam. But also you see all different kinds of people there and I really get like a sense. I don't know if this is. I don't mean to upset anybody or anything when I say this, but there's obviously people there who have decided to go there to change some stuff about their appearance, and I've been going for two or three months now. When you see those people that are going in there to try and change something, going in there consistently as often as you are, it's like go you man.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome and I'm really grateful for places like the gym because it's like as much as people might think it's judgmental, it's really. I haven't found it that way at all and I know everybody probably has different experiences with gyms, but I'm grateful for the one that I go to and that it can be a place like that for some people to go and relieve some stress or feel better about themselves, and I think the world needs more places like that. That's my gratitude. What's yours, brad?
Speaker 2:Hell. Yeah. No, that's good, because I need to go to gym. I need to start going to the gym again because I wouldn't say that I'm overweight or anything like that, but I am getting more weight than I usually have had and I want to sort of work that off and sort of get back to how I sort of was a few years ago.
Speaker 1:Can't be sedentary over 30, can we brash?
Speaker 2:that's it but, um, yeah, I still haven't done it. So those people who are motivated and go there every week, yeah, good on them, yeah come along with me, man, I'll have you, it's all good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, my dims were near my house but not near your house.
Speaker 2:But if you wanted to come, oh yeah, definitely come yeah, I was actually was not planning on after our Melbourne trip. Yeah, yeah, I'm planning on sort of sorting that out. But yes, my gratitude is mostly work colleagues and some of my friends, because at the moment we are very swamped at my work, and especially me. I get absolutely drilled with a lot of work because the parts of the business I look after are probably the most common parts of the business. So I get a lot more jobs than some of the other guys do, which is very stressful, and I'm really appreciative of the people I work with because they've got their own stuff to deal with and they do help me out a lot, which is great. But the main thing that helps me get through my day is that we sit around and we share reels with each other constantly all day. So, hey, a little bit distracting, but hey, it makes the day go a little bit faster and it makes it a little bit more enjoyable.
Speaker 1:That's good man, it's good to have good work. Colleagues, I'm finding the same thing in my new, old role I'll say because it's my old workplace, but a new role in my old workplace and it's yeah, the people make the place. I reckon it's definitely true. All right, that is our gratitudes, guys. We're going to be moving on to the episode that is all about Waterworld from 1995.
Speaker 1:This movie was directed by Kevin Reynolds, but some sources say that the back end of this movie, especially the editing, was very heavily influenced by Mr Kevin Kevin Costner himself. He was very tied to this project. He was very passionate about it. It was written by Peter Rader and David Toohey, starring the man himself, kevin Costner, and I'm not sure if it's Genie or Jean Triple Horn. Do you know Brash? She played Helen. Yeah, I think it's Jean. All right, we're going to go into a little bit about what Kevin Costner thought of this movie in our hot take segment. But before we do, brash at the time that this was made, in 1995, which is before Titanic was made, which is obviously a very expensive movie, this was the highest and most expensive movie made to date. Do you know how much it cost to like Waterworld? 22 million or something. I was way more than that wait, wait, hang on.
Speaker 2:No, I did see it, because it was. It only got trumped a couple years later by Titanic. Enlighten me, then, because I'm I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess $250 million.
Speaker 1:It's $175 million at the time. It doesn't like. For. Now it doesn't sound like that much because we have movies like Star Wars, the Force Awakens, which cost $447 million to make, jurassic Park, fallen Kingdom, which cost $432 million, to make Fast X, that epic installment to the Fast and the Furious trilogy that actually cost $379 million to make. This was only $175 million. Some people say it was closer to $200 million after marketing. It was considered a success because it made $264 million on the box. Closer to $200 million after marketing. It was considered a success because it made $264 million on the box office with $88 million worldwide gross.
Speaker 1:However, there was a lot of public scrutiny and unrest at the time about this movie and it was all about how much it was costing. The biggest thing that was a buzz was the fact that this movie costs so much to make. Biggest thing that was a buzz was the fact that this movie cost so much to make. And you know Kevin Costner at the time that this came out, he was a hot, hot commodity. He had just come off a Oscar win and he was like he'd done Dances with Wolves and he'd done Robin Hood, prince of Thieves and JFK. He was really really hitting his stride in the acting and also in the producing and moving into that sort of. He was becoming a leading man in the fact that he was very influential on set and he would be placed in movies before a director was chosen.
Speaker 1:He was obviously in Waterworld, which is this movie here, and it was directed by Kevin Reynolds. He had previously worked on a movie with Kevin Reynolds called Robin Hood, the Prince of Thieves, and the relationship was diverse we'll say it was tumultuous as the Prince of Thieves and the relationship was diverse We'll say it was kind of it was tumultuous as the seas of water world, because sometimes it was good and sometimes it was bad. I think there was a healthy respect. But in the end I think there is a very famous quote that Kevin Reynolds says about Kevin Costner in which he should only work on movies that he's directing because that way he can work with his favorite director and actor.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it was pretty much a slight towards him because kevin costner had some very passionate ideas about how waterworld should be, uh, envisioned and put to screen. I think kevin reynolds, the director, was very he wanted to explore the world and the cultures and the tribes of waterworld and explore that action-packed route uh, that we do see in part of the movie, and kevin costner really wanted to dive deep on the the dark and mysterious nature of the mariner, so he was really wanting to focus in on his character for the movie and kevin reynolds was really trying to focus on the world of water world and those two conflicting ideas really clashed, which resulted in this movie actually having three cuts, which we talked about as well. Brash, but it's like. Which one of these are we going to watch?
Speaker 2:I don't know um, yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard to find the alternate versions, yeah, yeah, so there's.
Speaker 1:there's the original version, which is the most common version, which is the two hour and 15 minutes, uh, which you can pretty much get everywhere of Waterworld, and then there is the extended cut, which goes for around three or so hours, but then there's a fan-made one called the Ulysses cut, and that was actually the fan-made cut where they explained more about the relationship between Helen and the Mariner, they went into a bit more of the cult of the smokers, the religious cult of the smokers, and they had a little bit more on the deacon in there and it just sort of tied together some of those unanswered questions through the movie. And a lot of people say that the Ulysses cut is the best version. Do you know why they call it the Ulysses cut?
Speaker 2:Because it's actually like Ulysses, isn't Ulysses like the?
Speaker 1:sea. Yeah, ulysses is the story of a Greek mariner and it is based on Homer's Odyssey and Homer's Iliad. Ulysses is the title character and throughout this whole entire movie, kevin Costner's character goes unnamed. He's just known as the mariner, and at the end of the movie, in the extended cut I believe, there's a scene or there's a deleted scene that explains that Helen gives the mariner a copy of the Odyssey and from that that he's actually she. She's suggesting that his name should be ulysses because he's constantly traveling the sea. So, um, through that they ended up calling it the ulysses cut. Yeah, I'm kind of weird, though, because helen can't read. Well, that's very true, but you can't actually look at it.
Speaker 2:So you're like here's, that's why it was deleted. Here's the here's this book about Ulysses. Hey, maybe your name should be Ulysses and he'd be like I can't read this you guys, can you guys? Can decipher the the tattoo the tattoo and all this back yeah, because what it was in Chinese?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's Chinese characters.
Speaker 2:yeah, it was Chinese and it was the latitude, longitude.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Do you know where the latitude longitude was, or is it a question that comes later? It was on the sides of the tattoo, yeah, but do you know where that latitude and longitude is leading people To dry land, obviously. But do you know real world, where that is? Oh, probably Everest or something. Wouldn't it deleted cut and the ulysses cut actually explain that that they're going to everest? There's actually a plaque that, uh is at the top of mount everest that they show in the movie, but unfortunately in the regular cut it's not shown. But yeah, the coordinates on her back that surround the tattoo of the mountain is, um, is the the exact coordinates in chinese characters to mount everest? It's the latitude and longitude of mount everest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, best question because I always thought, because I'm like I kind of assumed that that would be where that dry land would be. And the best question is like, that must be like nearly the only spot left, because when you look at it like you're asked, it's still a bit more of a peak. But how many other mountains above sea, above or above the rising level?
Speaker 1:yeah, would there be? There wouldn't be many of any. No, I don't think there would be any, and that's why everybody in the entire world of water world thought that, you know, dry land was a myth. Because if you think of the whole globe, how many people are left on the planet? Nobody would have ever come across it. Very few people at least. And, yeah, if there's only just the one spot and it's very small in nature, that's that suspension of disbelief that people have to do when they're watching this movie. It's like how could they not have ever seen any dry land at all? You know, and that's because there's only one spot. And that was the tip of a manor. Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get into our hot takes. All right, let's get into our hot takes. Our hot take segment is where we discuss our first thoughts of the media and unpack the boldest opinions, from what surprised us to what split the room. We'll also highlight your hot takes from threads and Instagram and our Reddit community. So go ahead and hit our socials because we'll read out your comment on our podcast. Brash, you have gone on record to say that you love Waterworld Divulge.
Speaker 2:Divulge, Divulge. For me, I think it's because I love, not some like. In a way, it's the closest. I feel that our world can become a semi-fantasy type world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a dystopian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so where no longer? Is it going to be someone drops a nuke, everyone dies. It's going to be someone drops a nuke, everyone dies. It's going to be like you literally might have to make your own sword or shield and fight someone hand in hand, like sword and shield style, because no one can make weapons anymore, like guns and stuff like that, or guns are a rare commodity and become sort of like Planet of the Apes, where a gun is like a like a godly artifact.
Speaker 2:And with a gun is like a, um, like a, it's like a godly artifact. Yeah, yeah, um, and with uh, and I like the it's, it's, it makes, it makes a bit more like life be more thrilling. It's sort of like, how, how I feel about any sort of dystopian type movie, so like he's mad max's, like living in that world, just drive around in fast cars and slide around and like that craziness. And then you got like the ones like, yeah, um, zombie apocalypse, like resident evil's, where, like all the world's just just decimated and like you're in a desolate world, just zombies have to survive against zombies. Like, oh, so, like walking dead's probably a better one than resident evil, but um, yeah, like walking dead.
Speaker 2:And then, um, you got water world, everything's on the ocean, on the sea high ferry.
Speaker 2:Like imagine, like if people actually built like proper ships and stuff like that, you'd be like pirates on the sea again. Like all that sort of thing is just like it's different and that's what I love, that it's something different and like it's surviving in like a new environment. Yeah, and like, and the possibility, how the mariner, how he's, like he's mutated enough that he's got gills so he can breathe underwater, like that's fucking badass. Being able to breathe underwater, he's able to kill that giant, monstrous mutated shark, fish and yeah, it's just, and that kind of world and that kind of vibes it's. It's the closest we probably in a bleak way also it's the closest possible way we get to some sort of like fantasy-esque world where it's more like survival and where you have to probably you have to go out and scavenge and find things to be able to sell, to be able to make a living and you know, get to get out of the office yeah, good day out of the office yeah no, I think that they've created a really good world in this.
Speaker 1:That's the thing that stood out for me when I watched this, because I had seen it before. It was one of those old late-time movies that came onto tv after you'd finished watching the movie you actually wanted to watch. And this one come on and you know, the first scene that you see is obviously the mariner, kevin costner, staying there and he takes a piss into his jar and then he pours it into a machine, filters it out, and then he drinks it, and then he does that pepsi like gotta die without that mate. But from that point on you're just like okay, this is a world that has some layers. And the fact that there's you know, there's such realism in even the costumes when you're looking at it, the things the costumes are made of, they're so intricate and detailed. The trimaran that Kevin Costner's character, the mariner, sails around on is just so awesome.
Speaker 1:Of course, the course, the automation on it is just revolutionary. And how much he was nurturing that lime tree, yeah, and that was the most vibrant thing that you saw. That green was the only green that you saw at the start of the movie. So it really does hook you straight in as soon as you're watching this and then you know it keeps you there with all the action sequences and you know the amazing atoll that was completely, you know, built by hand, and the you know the larger than life characters in the form of the Deacon and the Smokers. There's just like it's literally what you just spoke about. It's that fantasy realm and that dystopian. It's such a great playground, it's such a great sandbox. And I think that's what dystopian future movies are really good at doing. They're good at creating like a little spark of possibility where the audience begins to sit there and wonder what would I do in a situation like that. And it's also why so many role-playing games and tabletop role-playing games are derived from worlds like this dystopian world, futures. And I just liked you could just tell that there was so much thought that went into this movie, to the point where I don't know if the movie and the story as a whole did it justice, which we'll talk about later. But there was definitely so many different parts of this movie that you look at and every time there was a scene, even if it was just like a boat on the open ocean, there was always something to look at, like on the trimaran there was always something that you could look at and see and a nuance that was just sort of there or made In an action sequence. You could look at different things at different times on multiple viewings and it's like you're always looking at something different because it's just so big, like the world is so big, and I think that that's the appeal of Waterworld to me. It's not without its faults, obviously, but I think that the world that they've created and just that ruggedness is really good.
Speaker 1:And again, you mentioned Mad Max, and Frank and Thomas from the Challenge Accepted podcast challenged us this one because we're Australian and they were just like let's see, you do an American version of Mad Max on the water, which is why we're doing this now. But yeah, I think that it just plays into that human experience of survivability and it's just. There's also that mystery. You know, there's the narration at the start that says how this happened. Water world happened because all the polar ice caps melted. But there's always like the mystery of like what happened to all of the buildings, what happened to, um, all the animals, what happened like what happened, and there's all these questions. That positions the audience automatically to want to continue to watch because there's a mystery to be solved just by making the setting dystopian. So I think that that's probably the best thing of Waterworld 2 and I enjoyed just being in it for, you know, two and a bit hours.
Speaker 2:It was good, I liked it and that's another part that I liked is the Waterworld, and which I wish they touched a bit more on is the scavenging side of it. You see him sort of scavenge Bo once and that's sort of scavenged by once, and that's sort of at the start when he gets his lime stolen, yeah, when he goes down for ages, and then you're like what the fuck, where's he going? And then you realize oh, he's got a guilt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the mystery that ties you over too. But, yes, there's always that sense of desperation. Obviously he's robbed, but then when he goes to the atoll for the first time, he's allowed in because he shows them dirt and you're just like dirt really, what's the go here? So the mysteries keep on coming and they have questions that you want to answer. And then as you go into the atoll, you see that there's this massive tree there and you're like how are they keeping that alive on the ocean? And then there's like a lady that's being pushed into this bog and then that's just like there's so much that these people have obviously thought about in terms of the world and how it works and the things that they want to put on screen. But what they did that was clever, which some movies fall into the trap of, is they don't over-explain or the audience. They don't say, oh, the tree is there because and they don't have two characters saying dialogue as to how the tree got there or why dirt is so important. It's just sort of played out in. The audience isn't treated like an idiot and you figure it out on your own, which is why these movies kind of work so well.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, I loved being in the atoll. I loved the smokers. The deacon was absolutely amazing. Um, he was probably my favorite character played by dennis hopper. His playfulness as well. One of my favorite scenes was when he had those two strung up and he said you know, if you talk to me, I won't kill you. And then he ends up going to shoot him. He goes no wait, you said, if I told you I wouldn't kill you. And he goes. Did I say that? Oh, maybe I did say that.
Speaker 2:Like there's a nuance's like so what do you reckon? And everyone's like oh, then it goes to the kid. He's like um, what do you think? He's like? Looks like shit. And he's like looks at me, he's like it does look like shit. You always trust a kid to tell you the truth yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:It was so good, oh man. And you know what I only realized halfway through the movie, right, but they're called the smokers and they're always smoking. Yeah, I'm like that's why they're called the smokers. I thought it was because they left everything they touched in smoke, but no, it's because they're always smoking like that. And one of my little questions, little caveat questions, right is everybody thinks paper is amazingly valuable, right, but they're all smoking cigarettes, like they're nothing. And what's in the cigarette? Paper? What the heck.
Speaker 2:We've got all the paper we want. They're all rolled in paper, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's obviously some questions that still remain. I suppose, for them, though, paper it'd be more so, paper with stuff on it. Yeah, I think that's actually the point, isn't it? It's knowledge of the world that was. That's what they're they're really after.
Speaker 2:It's not just like paper is for paper's sake but also it would be paper would be very rare because the whole thing's kind of water. And why does a paper? When it's in water it gets fucked exactly right, it is count, very true.
Speaker 1:yeah, let's get into our Reddit people who talked about this movie. We have ZyloPhilUK, who says that this was the weirdest prequel to the Yellowstone franchise ever. We had CowboyForce who said the best part of this movie is when the Euler guy said oh thank God when he's blown up in the bottom of the deep. Yeah, that was amazing. That actually made me spit out my tea. Said oh, thank God when he was blown up in the bottom of the deep.
Speaker 2:That was amazing. That actually made me spit out my tea.
Speaker 1:That was one of the best scenes. You know, that old guy is literally like the D&D NPC that you put into your campaign just to get a laugh out of your players. Yeah, 100%, you could explain that guy to anybody and they would picture him perfectly. And yeah, just the way he was like, oh, thank god, that's awesome, that's so good. Um, we have great needle. Worker 23 says that the best part was when dennis hopper is on screen, but then the worst part is when dennis hopper is not on screen. There's lots of people that are praising. What was his name? Kim Coates, I think was his name. Was it Kim Coates, the gentleman that plays the mariner that they were sort of trading with, the one that he was going to trade Helen and Enola to?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's Kim Coates. He plays the Drifter. If you don't know Kim Coates, he has piercing blue eyes. He's in Sons of Anarchy. He plays Tig, that's right. Yeah, yeah, and he has that stutter and he's just like he's very terrifying and unsettling. He is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people on our Reddit thought that he played a really great role. He played the man who's been on the sea for far too long. Absolutely, he's got that seasickness ready to go. Uh, we have alexander the ape that says this movie was a great adventure. Even saw the water world show at universal studios, uh. And then we have period mustache that says that the universal show was absolutely amazing as well. And then you know, some people have said about the Universal show that you can feel the pyrotechnics and you know how expensive those props were that were left over from the movie, because a lot of the props used in that show were actually real-life ones from the atoll in the movie. So I think actually that is also how they recouped. A lot of the budget that they spent on this movie is through those universal shows the stunts as well, can we say.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's something about watching a movie right and seeing a guy on a jet ski going over a jump and jumping a wall and landing on the other side of it and thinking to yourself that was actually done. Like they did that. Yeah, same with the skiers as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same with the skiers as well. It's like growing up in Victoria, where skiing is a pretty big deal, but they'd have five of them behind a boat barefooting and they'd make a three and then two on the shoulders pyramid while skiing. Oh bro, that's just yeah. And just seeing that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:and then you see that in water where they're jumping the brimps, with the, with the skis, and you're like fuck, yeah, yeah, all right, let's move on to our threads. Right now we have golf tastic who says it's great fun, but the hype about its massive budget and the troubles they had making it were like anchors to this movie. People seem to want more than a great big daft sci-fi film. I, I think it is more than a great big daft sci-fi film. I think there's a lot of levels to it in terms of the world building. I think in terms of the story we'll go into a little bit later. There could be some more done there, but I think there's a lot to look at when you're looking at Waterworld as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it definitely seemed, or for me at least it almost seemed like too much, too much in one movie, yeah, and I think that was. That was part of the editing dramas that they had, because kevin reynolds had his idea and then kevin costner had his idea of what the movie should be, and you know, the two don't necessarily mash well together. I think that this is a world as a sandbox is absolutely amazing, and what the writers and kevin reynolds created is is you could tell a thousand stories in this place. I think kevin costner may have had some some credit to his point of view where it's good to have a world like that and then focus in on how one character is surviving in that world. That's a really good way to go and tell a story as well. But I think they were just they were trying to tell a lot at the time and I think that was the point as well. The Room Upstairs podcast says I haven't watched it in a while, but when I did as a young'un it was fire.
Speaker 2:And I can agree with that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because I watched it. This is my second viewing of it and I think I appreciated it more this time than I did when I was younger, which is exactly what JC003 says as well. It says I think I actually liked it more when I rewatched it a couple of years back than when I did when it first came out. And then we have Green Cooper that says Waterworld was a blast. So thank you, everybody in our community for tuning in to our socials and contributing to our hot takes Brash. We're going to move now onto a hot take given by a very important and special person, especially in relation to this movie.
Speaker 2:it is Kevin Costner's hot take on the movie can I also point out, though, absolutely after Waterworld, which was made in 1995, in 1997 another movie that I actually kind of like, really like as well, came out. That's pretty much the same thing, except on land, called the Postman and he was in that one as well, wasn't he? He was in that one and his character is the drifter kevin kosner had a type just put that out.
Speaker 2:Yep, a nameless drifter dons a postman's uniform and bag of mail and goes on a quest to deliver mail there it is.
Speaker 1:I've actually never seen the postman, but oh I've, oh, I've seen it once.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it. I reckon it's really good.
Speaker 1:You've got to think as well. In 1995, there wasn't many movies that were coming out like this. So any of those high adventure, dystopian kind of movies with this massive world and a very ambitious, I will say, premise, because in 1997, the highest grossing movie of 1997 was the movie oh sorry. 1995 was the movie seven with brad pitt and morgan freeman, which is a crime thriller, and then the second was toy story, and then, you know, after that it goes on to those very, very 90s films that you'd be very familiar with, and the 12th highest grossing movie of the year was Waterworld. So there was definitely a market for it and I think as word of mouth got out, its perception actually improved. But initially, when it first was released and during its production, there was just a lot of buzz about how much it cost to make, to the point where Kevin Costner, in an interview, he actually was really open about the how he was openly hostile actually to a lot of the media coverage that was calling, calling the movie like mean, mean spirited and that they were. He kind of perceived that they were obsessed with the movie's failure and he actually even quoted as well that they weren't reviewing the movie, they were reviewing the expense of the movie and he said he almost believed that the media wanted them to fail and he compared that coverage to like a feeding frenzy. They kind of got all over it saying that it costs so much money and that the product wasn't. It was overhyped. Basically it was hyped so heavily and the film might have received a fairer critical shake if it was not so.
Speaker 1:He actually stands by the movie, kevin Costner. He says that he thought it was a really ambitious project for 1995 and it also kind of revolutionized the way that movies go about, like filming action sequences. Because, he said Kevin Costner actually said there's no green screen and that we built that world from scratch. And kevin costner said to him that kind of meant something, which is why he kind of really wanted the film to do well and really poured a lot into the character. He says that it was one of his most challenging projects ever and we'll go into why that was a little bit later.
Speaker 1:But he also said it was probably one of the most fulfilling projects because he got the chance to work behind the camera a little bit on Waterworld and actually sit in a producer's role. He invested quite a bit of his own money into this movie, which means he was more respected to call some of the shots and that led to him in future being able to be confident in doing similar sorts of leadership roles on other projects which eventuated to him, obviously starring in amazing tv series like yellowstone. But yeah, he, he sort of stands by it and he said so in a 2021 collider panel interview. Yeah, it was challenging but he, he said how the original concept in the world building and practical effects are things that really shaped the modern blockbuster, or what shaped blockbusters at the time and modern blockbusters now really kind of lack that because there's obviously tightening of the belts and things cost money now and technology and CGI has come so far. But yeah, I think that the practical effects and the stunts they're probably one of my favorite parts of the movie.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. Well, they used all of Hawaii's like steel reserves that Hawaii had and had to get more shipped in from or flown in from California and they had to make the runway in Hawaii bigger to accommodate for a heavier planes landing with all this steel. They needed to make the sets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, that reminds me of like that Ron Swanson meme where he's just like I want all the bacon you have, but you should change it to I want all the steel you have and make. Hawaii sitting on the chair, or, you know, kevin Costner sitting on the chair asking Hawaii for all the steel they have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's all the steel they have there at Hawaii and they had to fly more in to make um at all yeah, the at all was a massive set that they had to make as well.
Speaker 1:And yeah, we'll probably get into that a bit later as well, but we are going to get into our fandom fact face-off now. All right, the fandom fact face-off is where hosts go head-to-head with trivia about the focus media, learning new, new facts along the way. When the host collectively gains 25 points from correct answers, we will give away a movie voucher to someone on our mailing list. I believe we have 11. No, we have 16 points. We have 16 points so far for our fandom facts face off, which means we need nine more to go. That's very doable, not in this episode, but it is very doable in the next few weeks. So if you want to get in on our giveaway where we give away a movie voucher to somebody to go and have that cinema experience, then you can do so by joining our mailing list at wwwthefandomportalspodcastcom. Brash, do you want to go first or me?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'll go first.
Speaker 1:Go for it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Tina Morigiano, who plays Nola, the young girl had a nickname on set, do you?
Speaker 1:know what her nickname was and why. I don't know what the nickname was, but it was something to do with the fact that she would always get stung by jellyfish. She would have all these jellyfish stings across her through all the water time that she had. It was like jellyfish bait or jellyfish candy or something like that jellyfish candy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she was stung three different times during production by jellyfish and she was like the only one, only one, who got stung, so they call it jellyfish king, so it seemed like the jellyfish just loved her yeah, wow, man, and you know all those water.
Speaker 1:This actually flows into my question, so I'll ask you this one, then we'll talk about it. So my question is what was one of the most dangerous stunts filmed during production? And I'll give you a clue it has something to do with the trimaran, which is the three-hulled boat that Kevin Costner's mariner would go around on.
Speaker 2:Isn't it just because they filmed it on like 30 miles out in open sea?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that trimaran was actually fully built and they actually had to build two of those because one of them got destroyed and the actual sort of most dangerous stunt involved the trimaran where the mast. Yeah, kevin Costner was actually lashed to the mast for one of these stunts that they were doing and there was a sudden storm that occurred and the trimaran got pulled and drifted out to sea and because it wasn't the most seaworthy vessel, obviously they had to wait until the storm had quietened before they could go in and actually rescue him. So he was drifting for nearly 30 minutes in open ocean before the rescue and stunt safety team could get him. Multiple crew members later described the shoot as very hellish and a lot of them, you know, suffered heat stroke and there was several physical injuries, to the point where a lot of them would call the production water hell due to the constant exposure to the elements. But it was literally nature that caused one of the biggest stunts in the movie to go awry, where Kevin Costner was kind of strapped to the mask and almost drowned because of the storm that was going through.
Speaker 1:The scheduling conditions and the fact that they actually shot on the open ocean led to a really high turnover of staff as well, and there were heaps of key crew members that kept quitting or needing medical attention during the shoot as well, because I think I forgot the exact numbers, but I think it was like 45 people per day would need medical attention, for seasickness especially, and also very severe sunburns was two of the most common things, and also infections from really strong exposure to long periods of time in salt water. There was also a stunt coordinator. His name was norman howell and he got hit with decompression sickness, which is do you know what decompression sickness is?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, is that when, like, um, uh, like you're having trouble, is it having trouble breathing?
Speaker 1:uh, kind of it's like when you're like disorientated and yeah, yeah. So when you surface too quickly as a deep sea diver, you get this thing called the bends and you get decompression sickness and it affects your breathing and affects your, your body's ability to like pass oxygen through various different extremities and yeah, because it can be fatal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah, he had to get rushed to hospital uh on honolulu a helicopter and they said he recovered fairly quickly but it was definitely life-threatening sickness and so he returned to set a couple of days later. Good on you, Norman Howell. I don't think stunt coordinators get enough credit. Hey, oh, good enough.
Speaker 2:That's why we love that. That's why I love that. The movie the.
Speaker 1:Fall.
Speaker 2:Guy, the Fall Guy, yeah love those.
Speaker 2:All right, so we've got uh, one extra point so far. Let's go with your next question. My next question is this is a bit of a raunchy, funny one. So in this movie there is like there's no real real nudity, but there is sort of a backshot scene of the character of Helen. However, jean didn't want to do the scene herself, so instead they did something else to find and she wanted to be very heavily a part of and find the perfect person to be her stunt double for this sort of half a butt shot, her butt double, her butt double. She wanted to find the perfect one. So they did something quite funny that helen art later would oh, that's helen, so jing later would say was probably one of the funniest parts of the whole entire process. Do you know what they did to find helen's perfect butt double?
Speaker 1:well, I think I don't know the answer to this one, but my guess would be the only thing that you could do would just be like to survey the butts that you could see around you. So whether it was like a police lineup of butts and she pointed to the one that she thought was the best Close.
Speaker 2:They had a butt audition, so sort of like an American or Australian idol, but with butts, and then the final three that would get chosen had to go into Jean's trailer and disrobe so Helen could have a look at their butt and then, after all three had done, that she chose out of those three finalists which one was going to be her butt double.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then later on, when they had to do that shoot, helen was there on set to make sure that as soon as they did this robe sort of scene, she was there straight afterwards to give her butt double a robe to cover back up again.
Speaker 1:Very thankful, very thankful for that.
Speaker 2:For being the butt double. Yes, I thought that when I read about that. I thought that was pretty funny, like having their own sort of casting with butt doubles yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that that scene the.
Speaker 2:Thing is Helen was actually the final of the judge, was the final judge and the person who picked who her butt double would be, because she wanted one that looked like her butt it looked just right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that scene is actually a really not insightful but informative one in regards to the Mariner's character, kevin Costner's character, because he's obviously being presented with Helen as a way to secure transport for her and Enola not to throw her overboard. So it sells us a lot about Helen as well that she's willing to do anything she can to protect this young girl. But also in that moment the mariner actually sort of declines and for a moment when you're looking at him it's almost like he is going to accept that offer because it's in a time of scarcity. So he looks very enticed by this offer but then he sort of stops. And he stops because you see that recoil on on helen and later on in the movie it says that you know he didn't accept that because he knew that she didn't want him.
Speaker 1:And I think that says a lot about the mariners character very early on in the film, because prior to that we're only exposed to him being very gruff, very materialistic, very survival orientated, um. So you could imagine that for me watching it if it wasn't my first time, I'd probably watch it and think, you know, that seems like a transaction that a character like that would take. But that was like the interesting seed that develops later into the fact that you know this character is actually kind of learning a little bit more about. You know what is actually valuable in this world, so I thought that was good.
Speaker 2:And I think the other thing, the fact that I think he sort of in a way sort of also hates himself being a quote-unquote mutant, yeah, and the fact that if anything were to happen, and that's why, like, when he's in town, he's like re-rejects the offer to have a child with the village girl, the the one at the atoll yeah, atoll, because he knows that the the one at the atoll, yeah At all. Um, because he knows that, well, we're going to end up we end up finding out that he's a mutant a and B, um, they're very well prejudiced, prejudiced towards um, his kind and yeah, and I think that's sort of also. I think it like holds him back in getting that closeness, because he knows everyone hates him and if he were to do that have a child then that child's going to have to grow up being hated as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and yeah, I think that's also probably was weighing on his mind as well, and it's funny how we can take all of these insights based on the character. That doesn't really say that much in the first sort of half an hour to 40 minutes of the movie, and it's just basically on how he interacts with the world around him, which is which is really good to see, because I also find it very interesting that in a lot of Kevin Costner movies all of the girls seem to just throw themselves at him all the time. We want to breed with you, Kevin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know it says a lot about well, I don't know if it does say a lot about him but you know, it's a bit funny that he's in charge of a lot of the, the way that these movies come out, and that's just something that keeps coming up. So yeah, but he's also sort of like respectfully declines it.
Speaker 1:He's a gentleman always a gentleman and a scholar, exactly. I respectfully decline. All right, so I'll say we got another point for that. So that's two points so far. My next question we have talked earlier and it is widely known that director Kevin Reynolds had to leave the production before the film was finished. Do you know the details as to why he decided to leave?
Speaker 2:Wasn't it just because he had a clash with Kevin Costner? Absolutely yes. They scuttled over the film and it ended up being so bad that he just walked off the project and then leaving kevin costa to direct it. And then that's why you said the quote before um, how kevin costa should only start in his own movies he directs, because that way he can work with his favorite actor and his favorite director.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. So yeah, kevin, kevin reynolds, he wanted. He disputed the tone, pacing and the final cut. Final cut. That was obviously Kevin Costner's sort of vision and Costner, who was also the producer and financer, became very assertive during this editing process. Reportedly, he removed a lot of sequences that Reynolds wanted to keep and Reynolds decided to leave the process during post-production. So after the hellish shoot he stayed on for the entire production. So after the hellish shoot he stayed on for the entire production. But the editing and the post-production he left for and Kevin Costner actually edited the film a lot or influenced the editing of the film quite a lot.
Speaker 1:The production was supposed to go for about 58 days or something like that, but it ended up ballooning to 150 something. It was a big, big project and a big debacle. So it was. Kevin Costner said it was one of those situations where somebody had to step in and I wanted it to be great and believed I had to be that person to do it. Later on years down the track, reynolds and Costner actually made up.
Speaker 1:They've made a film together subsequently and when asked about it now they said it was just very unfortunate circumstances during the time and I think that it was kind of like a pressure cooker of a movie because so much was going wrong, I think, reading during the production. There wasn't one thing during a day that went right. Lots of different sorts of things went wrong for a shoot, to the point where so many retakes had to be done and it was unavoidable elements Because they were shooting at an open ocean, which they were advised not to do by a very famous person. They like in some of the shots they would see the background of Hawaii or the mountains of Hawaii. So they'd have to turn the atoll around so they could shoot in open ocean.
Speaker 1:And then I read about a scene when they did that, they did one take where they accidentally saw the mountains of Hawaii in the background and then they turned the atoll to shoot it the other way and they were just about to get the final cut and as they did, a pod of humpback whales breached the surface and actually started spraying in the most unfortunate way. So even those sort of natural circumstances stopped some of the most basic scenes from being done. Yeah, it was. I don't think it was anyone to blame in terms of kevin ryan reynolds or kevin costner. I think the fact that this movie was made at all is just a tribute to their dedication to the project, but there was definitely a falling out, so you get the point for that one brash someone quite famous well, there was a few people quite famous turned down the role of deacon, which I think actually would have been very unfortunate if that had been the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was so good, so good, so I think it could have been even worse, even though these guys are really good as well. But just if you can name one person, one famous person, who turned down the role, of Deacon.
Speaker 1:I kind of want to say I think I read maybe Tim Robbins Was he one, he. I want to say I think I read maybe Tim Robbins Was he one. He plays Andy Dufresne in the Shawshank Redemption. I don't know if that's correct or not.
Speaker 2:Don't know. I don't think that was it. I've got four here in front of me.
Speaker 1:And that wasn't one, that wasn't one, I'm not sure, let me know, tell me.
Speaker 2:So there was Gene Hackman. Oh yeah, was um gene hackman. Oh yeah, um lex luther from the original supermans. Yep, james can. Oh okay, uh, unless I can quickly find where I lost my shit. Oh, gary oldman, sorry, oh wow gary oldman.
Speaker 1:I can't say that he would have done a bad job because he gets lost in every role, but I think dennis hopper brings a? Um, a nuanced sort of comedy ruthlessness to the role, which was sort of funny as well, and I think it just fit the setting really well because it was ridiculous enough but it was also villainous enough that it worked, and that's my opinion of it anyway.
Speaker 2:He also would have been pretty young-ish to them, whereas Death Hopper, I think, was probably a little bit older and just more. He seemed more in charge, whereas Gary Oldman probably would have looked more like the second in charge kind of guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, he definitely brought that dark eccentricity Is that the word, yeah, yeah eccentricity to that villain and it sort of balanced out the film's bleak setting, which was good. I actually saw an interview with Dennis Hopper and a lot of the questions in the interviews are talking about how much the film costs, and Dennis Hopper was actually one of the people that says I can't really say much about that. I'm not in charge of any of that, but from what I'm hearing, it sounds like I should have asked for a bit more money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, helmholtz carried it, but Drumhole, the biggest, well, one of the biggest names that also turned down the role, samuel L Jackson.
Speaker 1:Oh well, he would later go on to play an eye-patched bald character in the form of Nick Fury. Oh yes.
Speaker 2:He was about to star in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, actually that movie came out.
Speaker 2:In 1995 as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a good choice for him, because that one actually grossed more than Waterworld did. I think it was like the sixth or seventh highest grossing film of 1995. So also that's my favorite, die Hard movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, he turned down the role of Deacon to be in Die.
Speaker 1:Hard Sometimes when we do these who could have played this character there, these who could have played this character. There's some little parts of me that are like oh, I wonder what that would have been like. It may have been better, but this time I think they kind of nailed it with the deacon in Dennis Hopper. I think that he's one of the best parts of the movie. He's definitely one of the most fan loved parts of the movie and, yeah, I think he plays. It's a different kind of villain that you see. You know he's not kind of fully jaded by the fact that the world is so harsh and he's kind of humorous and funny too.
Speaker 2:So I thought I liked that he seems to kind of like, almost like, love it Like. For him it's like a playground, exactly, and he's just enjoying his time, yeah, being the leader of the smokers.
Speaker 1:All right, my question is about the smokers. So my question is the smokers are known for smoking? Well, yeah, and they they use a lot of resources as well, and when they made this movie, there was actually a real world comparison that the writers were trying to make between the smokers and, uh, people at the time. It was almost like a, a word of warning. Do you know what they were supposed to represent in terms of this cultish group known as the smokers?
Speaker 2:I think you might have got me on this one, I assume, if it was representing the time, maybe like gangs popping up or something, maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, close, it was actually to do with consumer excess, so using lots and lots of unnecessary items that would damage the world. So, for example, they always use fuel, they always use firepower, they always smoke cigarettes, they always do things that are damaging the ozone layer and it's almost like a little nod to say, you know, this is kind of what caused this dystopia in the first place. They were always using those pollution era vices and it was almost like this satirical kind of stand in for overconsumption and environmental disregard Makes more sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whereas like say like yeah, yeah, kim Costas the mariner is, he's is purely sale based, like using the wind, and it's like like all the um, the and it's like all the propeller you have at the top there it was all natural and everyone else is all natural as well, and they're the only ones that sort of like he uses like fuel and a car to drive from one side of the boat to the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's that kind of excess that satirical kind of excess and that sort of expulsion of natural resources that quote led humans to this fate. But then the smokers really exemplify that in this dystopian future as well, to the point where, like even their base, the, the exxon valdez, that big ship, that oil tanker, that's a real life world tank, that's a real world tanker that sunk in 1989. Uh, and it shows that that you know that ecological theme, providing that real world metaphor of environmental collapse that's depicted in the film as well through the smokers.
Speaker 2:So and that sort of makes sense. Now, how, like where, every time, like when he, when they lost it, like we're sort of not sort of when they lost a lot of people and a lot of things at at all, um, he wasn't as like he was angry, he wasn't as cut because they're like, yeah, we got more. Yeah, it wasn't like it doesn't do shit. It wasn't a desperation there. We just make more.
Speaker 1:We just do more. Yeah, exactly, and you know, when they were talking about the oil levels or the crude levels, they were talking about and they said you know, there's four feet and so-and-so inches, and they weren't really fussed about it. And you know, we're not going to slow down the way that we live, we're just going to go and find more stuff that we can burn.
Speaker 1:Yeah we will. That's how long I have to get more more crude oil so we can continue to live this way. But yeah, to the point where you know every one of them drives around on a jet ski. All of them have like motorized planes or helicopters. There's massive tankers that are polluting the ocean as well. They're there's massive tankers that are polluting the ocean as well. They're having no regard for environment and they put them in there specifically that cult, to show that human excess and consumerism and all those environmental damages that were happening were actually, you know, humans fault. So I thought that was pretty awesome too.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, it's a really good look.
Speaker 2:I didn't even think about it that way, which I think is a shame and why I thought there was too much happening in the movie, like too much having it once, like it'd be so much, especially much cool to expand and like, like learn more about each of the fashions, each of the group of people, because you, realistically, you only see the people of adult.
Speaker 2:You see the smokers crew and their big ship where they live, and then the only sort of other things you see is you see the other couple of drifters that meet um kevin costa's character, and then you get to that outpost that the smokers have already raided and killed everyone, and so that's. They're the only sort of like civilized types of civilization. You see, it's enough because you can see like you got normal people living how they can, naturally, and then you've got smokers living however they want, with their excess greed and all their polluting powers of using fuel and oils and everything like that, and then you've got the drifter who will just stay out and live his own life and just be free on the ocean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think there's a lot to dive into when you talk about the drifter's code as well, because there was so many different like rules that we heard about early in the film, where if you, if you find somebody and you pass by, you must trade something and you know, do all the drifters abide by that code? That was a question that Helen and Enola had for the Mariner as well when they saw the, the drifter uh, going through. You know, are we going to stop for him? And then they obviously had to uh, which integrated the trade between the paper and helen and enola as well, uh, which was another scene that sort of showed the humanity of the mariner poking through also.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think there's a lot to dive into each faction. We only sort of saw the surface level to the point where you know we've said it before about movies like this could make a really great TV show or a, you know, a tabletop RPG sort of setting that you could use as well. But yeah, I just think there's so much more in each little nuanced part of this movie that you can dive into that wasn't fully explored in the movie because they physically couldn't they have a three hour cut and there still was more that we could see. Do we have any more questions, brash, or is that it? I think that's it.
Speaker 1:I think, that's about it. That must be it. All right, that is the end of our Phantom Facts Face-Off segment. We are now moving on to our Set Secrets. The Set Secrets segment is where hosts look behind the scenes of the Focus movie to give you all the information on what went right, what went wrong and what was interesting about the way this movie was made and brash spoiler alert there's a lot that went wrong.
Speaker 1:actually it's starting to become a running theme about us reviewing movies where a lot goes wrong in the production of it there is so much things that go wrong on on movie sets, to the point where I'm very surprised that movies actually get made and finished, because there's just so much like adversity that people go through to do it, but it's so interesting to see that a team of people come together and do it every single time, you know, but yeah, there is. There is so much that went on to the point where the water world suffered massive production delays and massive budget overruns for the time. Uh, one of the main reasons for this, you know what? What of the main reasons for this? Do you know what key, pivotal decision was made very early on in the process of making this film, brash, that caused a lot of the dramas? It's a very obvious one, and it's one that the director, kevin Reynolds, did in contrast to advice given to him by Steven Spielberg. What is water?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah he shot the entire thing in the open ocean. Steven Spielberg actually said to him like as part of advice he said don't do it. It's a nightmare, it's logistically just an absolute horror. He did so for Jaws, yeah, and he also suffered an inflated production schedule. He suffered lots of delays there for his production on Jaws but, yeah, it ballooned into 170 million 75 million dollar project because the director, kevin Reynolds, decided to shoot. Lots of delays there for his production on Jaws but, yeah, it ballooned into $175 million project because the director, kevin Reynolds, decided to shoot off the coast of Kona in Hawaii on lots and lots of floating sets. They built the atoll, which was destroyed once by a hurricane that came through. The production itself was shut down another three times for storm and hurricane warnings.
Speaker 1:On Kona, hawaii, on the coast that they shot at. It's actually known as the windiest part of the open ocean in the world, which I don't know if they knew at the time. So location scouts don't know if they did their job properly there, but like, literally every single thing had to float, like and I'm not just talking about sets and boats and things like that but workshops for costumes and props had to float because they were on the open ocean Toilets for everybody to use had to float, food stations had to float, camera platforms had to float, and that was just a logistical nightmare. They had to have everybody to operate them and build them and then track them out from the coast of Hawaii so far out where they were shooting, and then every day everybody on production had to be ferried to and from the mainland all the time as well. So the cost was just skyrocketing and skyrocketing to the point where on any day they were shooting anywhere between really really deep water to waste deep water in the ocean for hours and hours. And you know like my biggest question for this was how they kept the camera steady all the time when they were making shots like this and like it would almost seem impossible, because a lot of the time they make cameras steady by running them across like a dolly track. You'll often see behind the scenes where there's like train tracks and the camera moves across it, so it looks like a fluid little movement that they're doing.
Speaker 1:But in this one they obviously had to improvise. But yeah, they had to develop these specialised rigs to mount the cameras on. There's floating gimbals and boat cranes, and a lot of helicopters were obviously used for tracking shots, which was big on the budget as well. There's just, you know, there was lots of groundbreaking inventions that influenced how films were later shot, like films like castaway and even pirates of the caribbean when they were shot on open water as well, waterworld did all the running so those movies could walk.
Speaker 1:Basically, yeah, one of the other big things was when they were making shots and and doing shots in the film, they had to avoid like rotor wash from a lot of the boats that went by and jet skis and things like that, because and then also natural things that were occurring in the ocean were just hard to um avoid. It was just a nightmare, just because they decided to shoot it all on open ocean and not on a stage of any kind. And you know what I'm, this is sound bad, but I'm glad they suffered for it because I like the fact that it is real and it is done on Ocean, that I can watch it and it pays off to me 100% and what they get for it.
Speaker 2:It looked cool.
Speaker 1:It did absolutely. It looked very, very cool, 100% and we're talking about it now.
Speaker 2:I'm going to for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're you know, 30 years later we're talking about this movie still and we're very appreciative of the efforts that you went through, because revolutionizing the cinematic experience for anything shot on water since. But also, yeah, it was done on a green screen. At the time, I think the CGI at the time was just developing. They've just made Toy Story, which is the first full-length feature CGI film, cgi in this movie, brash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't really do much. I think it was like the part of the lands, like the back of the land and maybe the fish creature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when they went underwater as well, that one was actually shot in a tank and the actual cityscape underneath was CGI'd in the fish scene. You know it was cool, brash, but was it like do we need that? Do we need the fish scene?
Speaker 2:I mean seeing him getting eaten by a fish and then blowing it apart, and the people like they're like we need to learn how to fish. He's like fucking, I'll show you how to fish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's what I mean.
Speaker 2:It. I think that's the thing I like, because you've already seen how he's good in a fight and he's pretty cool and everything like that. But I think this just shows his command of the ocean and just how much of a badass he is.
Speaker 1:That makes me shift towards the Kevin Costner side of it, looking at the character of the mariner and seeing how, if we think about maybe Kevin Costner's ego, maybe not thinking of that, but just thinking of the character of the mariner and seeing how, yes, that, okay, that's.
Speaker 2:If we think about, like maybe it may be kevin costa's ego, if we maybe don't think of that but just think of the character of the mariner itself, it makes the mariner seem, seem like as um, because what I try, what I get from the mariner, is that he is the embodiment of someone living on the ocean like he. He knows all the tricks, he knows all, he knows, like, what to do in all situations when it comes to the ocean.
Speaker 1:He's as comfortable out there as we are in our own homes.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and just that badass moment of just being like you're worried about catching fish. You're not going to catch any fish with that flimsy little rod. I'll show you how to catch a fish.
Speaker 1:And it's just a badass moment to show that the mariner is who he says he is yeah, okay, all of it to show that the mariner is who he says he is yeah, okay, all right, brash, I agree with you here. I think that scene was now necessary to those, those fish haters out there.
Speaker 1:That's why he he is like aquaman yeah, 100, and you know, I think a lot of the the movie aquaman was kind of you could base a lot of it on the mariner and a lot of the things that he was doing in that way because, yeah, as you said, command of the oceans, absolutely and completely there he was fully comfortable. A lot of the underwater scenes in this movie obviously key to the point where he was showing helen what happened to dry land and why he doesn't believe in dry land. So he had to take her down in that little jerry-rigged machine, yeah, that he just happened to have for little things not that he needs it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he hasn't been testing his tech tours yeah, exactly like a guy that never needs something like that, just has it handy on his, his little boat there. That's cool, but this might be also something that's explained in the extended cut, but we didn't watch that one, so to us it was weird so we don't know yeah, um, but yeah, I think that uh, those those underwater scenes was was shot in a tank.
Speaker 1:It was specially built at the time and there was lighting systems that sort of had to be put in there and allowed for better visibility and safety for the staff. But it was also very, very expensive, uh, when they had to make that as well, so it it was very hard to pull off because the device they were using to have, you know, air in it while uh helen went down into the that got very foggy very quickly, so visibility was hard to see the actress's face through the actual screen. But one of the hardest things, and something that I actually sort of questioned as we were watching it, was the costumes. We said how amazingly intricate those costumes were and how they looked like. They were so hard to make because of all the intricacies in them.
Speaker 1:But there was actually dozens of identical costumes, so the mariner had like 12 different mariner costumes and they're all the same. Do you know why? They would have done that brash. Well, yeah, yeah, simplicity, but but for continuity as well. So because they were shooting on the ocean, all of their sort of sun damaged garments, they had to sort of swap between takes because they were either waterlogged or for continuity's sake. If somebody got wet, for example, but they needed them to be dry for the scene, continuity-wise they'd have to swap the costumes over, yeah, so they'd have a dry costume to go over.
Speaker 1:So you know, they were all soaked and torn and discolored from the salt water and the sun exposure. But, yeah, the wardrobe department had to have multiple duplicates on hand and they all had to be manually aged and dyed to match each other.
Speaker 2:So the costume department did an amazing job on this movie Did you notice, the Mariner's necklace is actually a little part of a circuit board.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did. You know one thing that did annoy me about the Mariner's character in part of the and I don't know who approved this in in the costume department but they definitely didn't take people into account that like focus really hard on movies and get fixated on one particular thing, like me. Um, hey, they didn't account for, like the earrings that he was wearing every time he moved his head. Those things like jangled around and like that's gonna get caught on something, especially on a boat, bro, like you're up and down the rigging all the time and you've got this shell hanging from one side and three on the other.
Speaker 2:Well, it looked cool, though I feel like you're a Kevin Costner aficionado right now because you're defending him well I was going to say, like, looking at it, a lot of movies I really like have Kevin Costner in them, but like. The. Guardian yeah, yeah yeah, like he was so good so good in that, and then like the Postman, I love the Postman, he's in that Yellowstone, I love Yellowstone, he's in that what's the movie that he's in with Sean Connery, the Expendables?
Speaker 1:that's a good one too. That was like his breakout. That was really good oh yeah, the Expendables. Yeah, yeah, yeah where is it the Expend? No, no, no, untouchables.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it, the Untouchables yeah, the cops who go against the gangsters and that, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, I think that all of these production issues really make me appreciate the film so much more. But let's talk about the big one, brad. Let's talk about the biggest budget drainer eater, yeah, of this whole entire movie. Do you know what it was? I thought it was the fact that there was an ocean. Is it the? Was it? That's what caused a lot of the issues, but what's the thing that they spent the most money on in this movie? No, Well, yeah kind of.
Speaker 1:Kind of it was building the atoll. Yeah, yeah, the sets, obviously. Yeah, there's still pontoons. They were 400 feet in diameter and they weighed over 1,000 tons. They had to make two of them because one of them got dredged down by a hurricane and they tried to retrieve it and pull it back up but it obviously wasn't able to be salvaged. It was made of modular steel structures and it was supported by floating pontoons as well and it was assembled off the coast and constantly monitored for buoyancy and stability during that time and constantly monitored for buoyancy and stability during that time.
Speaker 1:It was, you know, repairs took a number of weeks and millions of dollars to do. After it was, you know, damaged by a hurricane and it ballooned the budget so much and added to lots of set drawbacks as well. But it was a milestone in practical set production and it is not like it's a complete waste because it is being used in the sets through all of the universal Waterworld shows now and, you know, 30 years later, still a staple of those parks. I have a feeling I've watched one of them here at Waterworld. I know that they do one here in Australia on the Gold Coast, but it's a. It's almost like a Police Academy one yeah, a police academy one yeah I don't know I'm sure they did a water well.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I've seen a water world version at water world, at sea world. Ah, sea world.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, we have water world here now we have white water world, but it's that's more like uh, water slides and yeah, like that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm sure, because when I went to, I went there when six this would have been a year after the movie was made, and I'm sure there was a Waterworld.
Speaker 1:They do jet ski stunt shows and things out there. Yeah, maybe that's what you saw. Maybe that was it. Maybe you just saw people riding jet skis and you're like Waterworld, yeah, maybe. All right, let's go to our most valuable takeaway. This is the Heart and soul of the podcast, where we break down the one thing that hit hardest, stuck longest or taught us something new from what we just watched. It is our moment to spotlight the takeaway that made us think, feel or see something differently. This is what we learned from Waterworld in 1995 starring Kevin Costner. I actually messaged you for this one, brash, and I was like what did I learn from Waterworld? I don't know. I was just so involved in the world that I was like what did I?
Speaker 1:learn from it. It was a cool story. Yeah, it was a great movie with a cool story. Five stars, but you actually come up with a really good one.
Speaker 2:Do you want to share it?
Speaker 1:Yes, so I believe what I came up with was you better remember it word for word because it was good Word for word.
Speaker 2:I think my word for word was also pretty terrible. No, but long story short, prioritising friendship and camaraderie over immaterial and not material goods and useless trinkets that can be replaced so the real treasure is friendship, family, family.
Speaker 1:So the real treasure is friends, family, family. Yeah, true survival isn't about just staying alive, it's deciding who you're going to stay alive with, and it was that mariner's choice to start valuing people over profit, and it's eventually what kind of saves his soul in the end and gives him that gift of morality while he's adrift. It was almost like the missing piece in his life, wasn't it? Because he could survive really well on the ocean. He was really adept at, you know, seafaring and he could make the best deal ever. He was always able to get greenery and live a nourished life. But he didn't truly come alive until, you know, he started connecting with Helen and Enola.
Speaker 1:In this world where every scrap of earth is literally a currency, like paper is currency, dirt is currency, a little trinket you feel like a shoe, a boot, like a shitty old boot that you find on a mariner's outfit is currency, everything is currency and more valuable than gold. Human connection has become really rare and almost undervalued. It's like a costly luxury as well, because sometimes it can kill you. In this sort of world, like trust is not something that is well, it's non-existent, basically. And compassion is dangerous as well. If you're nice to somebody, you don't know what they're going to do to you back. Like the mariner, for example, gave compassion and curiosity to the man who stole his limes at the start and he was basically lied to straight away. So it sets you up in that world sort of way, straight up to say that this world is untrustworthy. It is very dog eat dog. It is not a place to uh, raise your kids, basically. Um, everyone's seen in this is a potential resource to be exploited, whether it be for trade protection power, everybody's using everybody, basically in Waterworld.
Speaker 1:So when it gets to the point where the mariner actually meets Helen and Enola at the start of their relationship, that's the exact same thing, isn't it? Because the mariner's trapped in a cage, he has a need, pretty much for the first time that we see anyway, or possibly the first time in his life, he needs others for something he's not sustaining himself, he's not surviving himself, he needs somebody else to help him. Um, he's trapped in that cage and you know, helen and enola rescue him under the proviso that they are to be taken with him. So it's very transactional at the start there. But there a there's like a change that happens throughout this movie, where he begins to start to realize as well that connection is more valuable at this point, and there's a few of those moments in this movie. Do you remember any Brash?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the biggest one that stands out for me, I think, is when he starts getting empathy for Enola, the fact that she can't swim.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's such a good scene the water dance.
Speaker 2:The water dance, yeah. And then when Helen wakes up and he is sort of laughing or giggling and screaming and laughing, and she's like, oh shit, he's coming, he's drowning.
Speaker 1:Which isn't so out of the box, because he literally said he's going to throw her overboard, and it was so black and white for him too. It was just like. You know, I only have rations for two days. It'll slow down the speed of the boat. We need to ditch her. It was cut and dry. Yeah, oh yeah, 100%. Yeah, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2:And then also the fact where, when this is when he first really starts to get excited and along with him, that I give back to you so she doesn't know and he's like it's a loan, it's not hers, she can't keep it, it's a loan, knowing full well that the more she uses it, the more it's going to disappear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the crayons, yeah, the crayons yeah, so yeah, because she goes, she goes. Helen goes to give him back the last crayon and all I had. She's like you won't ever do and use it, even though he knows full well that if you use it it's going to disappear.
Speaker 1:I think in that moment he was trying to keep up his tough exterior, but he was definitely starting to connect and soften up and I think that's the perfect moment for it, because he gets no return investment from giving that child, that crayon. He gets nothing back in return, physically at least, and his whole life he's been used to trading one thing for another and trying to get the best deal. So that was such a moment of growth for him to actually go through a transaction that was pretty much charity. So I think that's perfect. And then also again, when he started to connect with her even more was during that swimming scene.
Speaker 1:It was almost like that was like an intermission or a break from the harshness of this movie, but also the world, because it was undershot. It was beautiful music, the light was really tranquil, there was silhouetted figures as well and they were joyful. They were playing throughout this entire scene. So that was probably one of my favorite scenes that showed a lot about the Mariner, and I actually think that one was influenced and edited by kevin costner, so there's a tick for old kevin's cap. Put that one in.
Speaker 1:So and that, if without that scene and without those little moments, I think the moment at the end where he's holding that fire stick over the, over the oil drum, it wouldn't have as much weight. And when he talks about how he would in fact risk all of this for his friend, you know why would you do this for my friend? She's my friend. It wouldn't have held as much weight or made as much sense. So, yeah, I think that his slow journey into that connection is he realizes that, yes, he will get something out of it and it's that feeling that he gets, being connected with other humans as well that feeling that he gets being connected with other humans as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and but like, even though, and he chooses to go back out in the ocean. Yeah see, that's literally where my mind went too, because I'm like would it have been better if he stayed?
Speaker 2:well, see what I, how I see it sort of like um parts of the caribbean with um uh here and will's character, how he chooses to stay as captain of the um flying dutchman yep and then only be able to come back to land every so often because his place because he said to like my place is on the ocean, but now he knows a place he can come back to to rest yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess it's that respite that's the valuable part for him knowing that they're there, everybody has their place as well and that connection that he carries as well. It actually sort of because he he did say as well at the end of this movie that he, uh he had to go out and find more people like him, so more mutants like him, so they would know that there is a place that they can go and more like them, so the world isn't such a dangerous place. So he has to spread that seed of connection that he got.
Speaker 2:And find good people to maybe join on the island, because realistically, if those three people four people are on the island, Biologically it doesn't work. Yeah, no, it's not going to last long. So they just want to find more people for that island.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you know by the end it's a full reversal of the man we meet in the beginning. That's drinking his own piss. He's choosing people over things and purpose over over escape, because he could have. He could literally. When, when Anola was captured, he could have just gone on his merry way. Yeah, it's good, me and my ship alone I want to go. Yeah, and he could have done that multiple times. But you know, there's also the moment that we talked about earlier where he resists the trade to the drifter.
Speaker 1:Uh, enola isn't an object in that regard. She's. She's a child and she's got a spirit and she's got like a future. And I think actually the fact that they made enola a child and the fact that the child was the map she had, like a plot version of importance, but she also had an important role as being an actual child, because in a situation that's dystopian and I've seen this in lots of movies before as well the biggest baggage you can have is just having to drag a child along the way sledge because unless they're like, like even carl in the early season look at you, carl such a burden.
Speaker 1:Such a burden and I think that speaks a lot to the character where he initially thought of her in that manner but then eventually she, I'll say, proved her value and worth. But really he saw the value that was always there, which is that, you know, connection is what is the real commodity and resource. Alright, you ready to rate it just about.
Speaker 2:I just want to make an honorable mention. Go for it, because we haven't actually mentioned this or said anything about this. Jack Black is in this movie as well. No, who was Jack Black in this movie? He is the plane pilot, not the one that gets blown up and shot down, but you see him when they're talking about once they found him and they're talking about the plan, about where he's going to be, and they're like, oh, he's going to know where we think he's going to be, so he's not going to directly change his course and we're going to catch him again. I know that. You know. The person sitting in the background with the pilot's cap on is Jack Black, and you can see him. He's in the background just making all these fucking ridiculous faces Wow While Dick is making his speech, and then there comes a shot of him and he's got a cigarette in his mouth and he throws it at someone.
Speaker 1:Now, man, that must have been one of his first ever roles. You know another fun fact in terms of, uh, people that were in this movie, a very famous writer actually came in to do rewrites on the script after some debacles with old writers that had to leave, and it was Joss Whedon. It was one of his first roles and he said it wasn't a very good experience because he was basically there and as soon as he got there Kevin Costner got in his ear and he was pretty much writing Kevin Costner's ideas into scenes, so there was not much creativity to it. All right, let's rate it. Time to rate it and rank it.
Speaker 1:Each host gets five stars, one for each category story and script, characters and performance, direction and tone, visuals and soundtrack and overall enjoyment. If the movie nailed it, it gets a star. If it flopped, it gets no star. If it almost stuck the landing, it gets half a star. At the end, each host lands on a personal score out of five. We take the average of that and we update our official letterboxd on a board. If you want to follow that along, it is on our Phantom Portals letterboxd. You can track any time. Let's see how we rated Waterworld 1995. World 1995. It's a messy but majestic aquatic epic brash.
Speaker 2:You've said you liked it. Are you biased in this one?
Speaker 1:uh, I wouldn't sound biased, but um, there is a bit of nostalgic love for this movie for me so, okay, keep that in mind, everybody, when you're hearing brash's rankings, I will be professional and on by it now. All right. So story and script I'll go first. For this one, I gave it half a star. The world building is imaginative and immaculate. It's well realized. The costumes are awesome.
Speaker 1:The plot is a little bit disjointed, though a little bit predictable. Story's a bit thin, same as all like the mad max movie that it's kind of based off of as well. The story is group of people are in trouble and need to get to x place, like that's basically it. So the world building is absolutely immersive. I can't fault it. We weren't given enough of it, but I think that there's enough depth there to keep me curious as a viewer. So in terms of story, I gave it half a star. In terms of script, as in the way that the movie plays out as a story, not so there for me, but some of the lines in it very quotable, very awesome. So if I could give three quarters of a star, I would, but it's half a star for me. What about you?
Speaker 2:Very much the same Half star. As I said, I think it was too much in one hit. Yep, I reckon if they had spread it out somehow. I also feel like it would be hard to do it in two movies. So yeah, half stuff for me for that.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. All right, let's go to characters and performances. So for me, I'll give it half a star, because the other part of our thing is characters and performance. So I think that the characters were all really awesome and it made me wanting to dive deeper into those characters because of how interesting they were in the setting. However, the performances I think some were hit and some were missed. For me, like dennis hoppers was amazing and pulled off, but I think some of his lackeys and some of the the extras in that regard were a little bit too slapstick and over the top four to be villainous. It's almost like, if you change, actually digressing yeah, if you change think about it, think about it, yeah, yeah, if you change all of the characters himself is pretty
Speaker 2:slapstick, and then all his followers are just extensions of him well, that's exactly right too.
Speaker 1:Yeah look, I'm gonna give it a full star. I think that the characters and the performances in this is is good, like kevin costner's performance. Is is gruff and nuanced, but it's supposed to be, and then when he opens up he's like the dad that doesn't want the dog yeah. And then he gets the dog and he loves the dog more than anything. So I'm going to give it a full star for characters and performance.
Speaker 2:He is what I wish the Mad Max character was a bit more like.
Speaker 1:Oh, dementus, dementus, I think that's what they were going for. Hey, yeah, yeah. And to Frank and Thomas who are listening to this this doesn't mean that we like your American Mad Max, but the. Australian one.
Speaker 2:We just like Dennis Hopper a lot. We've had multiple Mad Maxes, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 1:Talk to your boys. Talk to your boys, frank and Thomas, get us another one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another one so we can do an accurate comparison. I would love that so much. Yeah, absolutely Deacon so good. All these lackeys I loved all these lackeys. I loved how like sort of slapstickish they were because, realistically, like they're doing some dumb shit, like the guy with the pig mask that's on the railgun and he's just continually shooting through everything.
Speaker 2:And I love the fact that he's got the pig mask on, because it also shows that greed, like he doesn't want to stop, like he just wants destruction, he just wants to chow down on this destruction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's almost like instinct too. He wasn't acting off of any sort of logic.
Speaker 2:It was all instinct survival, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. But then this shows how sort of like eh, that Deacon's character was, because he says, like what's his name and what was the pig's name? He's like, oh, his name's Chuck, and he's like Chuck, chuck. And he's like, maybe he doesn't answer Chuck, call him Charles.
Speaker 1:and then he's like, well, chuck's off the boat yeah, that's literally like exemplifying that excess and no fucks given attitude of they're just wastefulness.
Speaker 2:It's just like well but then you got like the good character sides and yeah, kevin Costner's character. I love the man, like his character, like, yeah, gruff, so he starts to wind down but he doesn't sort of lose that. I'm a badass one man army type deal and he took out pretty much all the smokers in mind but, um, blow up their ship and everything like that. And then even like Helen Helen's character, I liked Helen's character as well.
Speaker 2:I really liked the character of Helen. Jean did an absolutely phenomenal job. I did hear, though, that because Kevin and her worked on a thing previously and not too long ago and they were sort of a bit on and off with their friendship.
Speaker 1:Yep, so to say. Well, I think during this movie as well, kevin Costner was going through a divorce. He was as well. So that's literally just another thing that piled onto the fiery heap of shit that went wrong in Waterworld. You know, production issues, all the hurricanes, everything, also Kevin Costner divorce. Yeah, it was just a hellish time for everybody. But yeah, also Kevin Costner divorced.
Speaker 2:yeah, it was just a hellish time for everybody. But, um, yeah, but she did a marvellous job. I thought she was really good and then. But then there's Nola, a child actor.
Speaker 1:Okay, here we go. Phantom Portals regulars. You know how this is and how'd you go. I fucking loved her. Hey, there we go so good.
Speaker 2:She was so good. Oh, I liked she was so good. Oh, I like the characters a lot like tina just just knocked out of the park.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think she did a good job too, especially in the scenes where she was the little girl combating the deacon and the lackeys and just saying all these nightmarish things about the mariner, you know, like he's a man that doesn't have a name, so death can't find him, and like all that kind of stuff. He's coming for me, you know, and when he does like yeah, it's, yeah, it's just all those things a kid definitely would say, but she delivered it with such like and the way she's like.
Speaker 2:She's always like, like in a way, like she knows she's doing something wrong and then still sort of do it and sort of just like, like, and then you see the like, the like. It's almost like testing them out. Oh, I'm like, oh, it looks great, I love it, yeah, no, so, yes, no, no, it was really great and I have to give this a star very good, all right, so full star for me.
Speaker 1:Full star from you for characters and performance, direction and tone. I gave this half a star because I think to pull this project together is just a feat of direction, but there was obviously some creative differences tonally between Kostner and Reynolds and that can be seen on occasion through this. I think that you know, mixing those large scale spectacles with the emotional beats is good, but I think that the the struggle for the production and to have that cohesive tone was something that for me, I gave it half star. What about you?
Speaker 2:It's hard Cause when it comes to like the smokers and when it like focus on the smokers but perfect, like they did, like there was such such good direction, they went with them was perfect. But then, yeah, you do see, with with kevin costner and and their section of the movie, like there's parts where it's like, oh, they're dragging this out a bit. Yeah, I think that was the emotional piece that they're trying to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm like they lingered on scenes a little bit for the arthouse appeal.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean by the tonal differences there, because there was high action spectacle like jet skis jumping over shit and explosions galore and someone bungee jumping out of a balloon to pick up somebody out of the water while seven jet skis crashed into each other. But then there was also those emotional beats of helen and, uh, the mariner sitting on some wreckage and just sort of lingering on gazing eyes for a little bit too long and that kind of thing like it was almost like some people wanted it to be a character driven period piece and others wanted it to be a action blockbuster and it didn't quite marry. Well, it was good, but it didn't marry as well yeah, like that's I mean.
Speaker 2:And there's like and especially like the jumps you get because you go to the jumps from the mariner scenes that are all like. They like the start of the scenes in the middle of parts of the with the Mariner and Helen and Enola, were all really good, but then at the very end it sort of just it falls into a lull and then snap, you're at the smokers and there's shit going crazy everywhere and it's bombastic and larger than life and they're playing like what was the music they played when the deacon was like driving through the atoll.
Speaker 1:It was like Bad to the bone or something. Yeah, it was like this easy top or something is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it went from like one like went from like them just drifting in silence and nothing, and then all of a sudden it went bang to this like where people are like banging on making, like banging on metal, like making shit and making bullets, and kids around running around smoking and everywhere. Yeah, it didn't merge the two, the cut scenes.
Speaker 1:well, I don't think. Yeah, so half a star for you because of those inconsistencies. Yeah, okay, alright, so that means you and I both gave it half a star for direction and tone. Moving on to visuals and sound, for me I gave this a full star because everything looks real, because it is real. They've built it all from scratch.
Speaker 1:The costumes are absolutely immaculate. There's little adornments, like I'm looking at a picture here of Dennis Hopper right now. His jacket alone has so many war medals attached to it. All those different sorts of attention to detail was really perfect for me and that attention to detail was really perfect for me and that makes me forgive the janky cgi. In terms of the sound, there was a little bit of um disconnection between you know, the hard rock that was playing during the um, the smokers scene, but then it was like the. The jarring to me came when that was mixed with almost the tribal pan flute sort of music that was playing when the mariner was on. But I actually think that was kind of intentional to see, like the industrial electric heavy music and then the naturally percussion yeah, so I think, that sort of wove in.
Speaker 1:Okay with the sound. For me, yeah, I gave it a full star because of the effort that they went through on the production to actually build everything and make it authentic and make it their own and bring a world to life that we both love, like we both believed it and we both love it and we want to explore more of it. So for me, I gave it a full star.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not much to touch on there. I gave it a full star too. The stunts alone were amazing too, like with the skis and the jet skis, yeah, like, oh, just absolutely fantastic. Flying up the um, you know, stump double it's a lot of his work. But like, flying up the mast, like and all, like swinging around on the mask and mastering everything like that and like just all the action scenes, just phenomenal.
Speaker 1:And the fact that they do that all in the open ocean primarily, like, oh, just yeah, yeah, and also the feat of engineering that had to occur for them to oh, to do any of that, yeah, and build the machines to actually capture the film. So that has gone on to be used in other films as well, and that kind of legacy is like you can't, I can't not give it a full star, yeah for that. So all right, now let's bring it to enjoyment and watch a rewatch ability for me. I'm actually sitting here thinking I want to show this one to Kalia because I, but I think it's one that she could probably get behind, because it does have that like it has the action which is the action and the relationship sort of, and then it also has the relationship between the Mariner and Helen and Enola and it shows that Mariner's growth throughout and she really likes that sort of character build.
Speaker 1:So for that it's good, rewatchable, wise, and I enjoyed the heck out of coming back to Waterworld, so I gave it a full star as well. I'll come back to these high seas anytime. So if they're going to do another one, I'll watch it. You'll get into a series, I'll watch it.
Speaker 2:Yep, I'm saying yeah, yeah, just yeah. I love it's like one of my favorite movies of this type, along with like yeah, just give me more of it. Yeah, full star, full star.
Speaker 1:Cool. Yeah, I think it's ambitious. It's like a chaotic blockbuster, like a great popcorn flick, but it also has those moments of subtlety as well with character development. So overall, I have given it. I think we're about the same now. Yeah, I gave it four stars and you also gave it four stars altogether, which gives it an average of four stars, and you also gave it four stars altogether, okay, which gives it an average of four stars, which means it will sit on our fandom portals on a board. So we've ended up with having Waterworld sitting sixth on our list, just below Iron man. Yeah, so it's in the top ten, definitely, and I hope that impresses our audience but also impresses Frank and Thomas, who challenged us to this movie. If you haven't already, go and check out their podcast, which is the Challenge Accepted podcast. They're part of the Geek Freaks Network, two great guys and they love to chat about movies and TV as well. So, yeah, sitting sick on our fandom portals.
Speaker 1:You know what we have to do now. What Mad Max? Yeah, we gotta see if it actually fits and gets better. Do we do Mad Max? Do we do Furiosa? Do we do Fury Road? If we want it to compete, I feel like we gotta do Fury Road, surely? Or Thunderdome? I love Thunderdome, bro. That's a hot take. That is a hot take.
Speaker 2:Master Blaster.
Speaker 1:I'm.
Speaker 2:Master, he's Blaster.
Speaker 1:There was a choice, mate. Look, mad Max was made in 79. This was made in 95. True, but anyway, let's get on to our sign-offs. All right, everybody, that was Waterworld from 1995. Thanks, brash, for joining me on that one.
Speaker 1:If you wanted to be part of the ship, part of the crew, then you can definitely join our mailing list at wwwfandomportalspodcastcom. If you do, we'll send you one email a month that shows you all the things that are going on in the Fandom Portals podcast. You'll learn first that Brash and I are going on a holiday soon. Go and see Vox Machina Critical Role play D&D Live. That was in our monthly newsletter. But you'll also have a chance to enter all of our giveaways. So you must be a part of our newsletter in order to get an entry to our giveaway and once those giveaways activate, we will choose from our mailing list people to select our winner. If you want to have your opinion read out on our podcast, then join our threads Instagram and Reddit. We are always at fandomportals everywhere and we're also pretty social on there. We post some in real life stuff as well when it comes along. So that's the best way to get to know us as hosts is get on those socials there. If you have a longer question, you can definitely email us too. We are at fandomportals at gmailcom Next week portals at gmailcom. Next week, brash, we are going to do the new animated feature on Disney plus called Predator, killer of Killers.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I've recently been watching some of the alien movies, trying to like broaden my horoscope. Have you watched any of the Predators? I like Predator better than Alien. I've watched the original Predator. I've watched Alien vs Predator. I've watched Alien vs Predator. I can do Predator in terms of horror movies. I know it's well known that Aaron doesn't do horror movies, but I can do Predator.
Speaker 2:Make sure, before we watch this movie, you watch the latest Predator that has the Native Americans in it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I've watched Prey. I've rated it on Elderbox before yeah.
Speaker 1:I've watched Prey very good, I know, because I know there's a bit of a bit of a easter egg in the animated movie, so that's homework for all our viewers as well. Make sure you watch Prey, and then we are going to be looking at and taking a deep dive on Predator Killer of Killers next week. So make sure you tune in, keep learning, keep growing, keep loving fandoms. And if you did love this episode, guys, please, please, please, share it with somebody who needs to give water world a re-watch, because word of mouth does a great thing for small podcasters like us. It spreads the word and we'd love to hear from all of the people in our community. So that's it from me.
Speaker 2:Aaron signing off brash just remember, dry land is not just our destination, it's our destiny. Peace, see ya.
